Live on Sky Sports: Burnley v Birmingham City

Match Round 2 in the Sky Bet Championship kicks off with Burnley and Birmingham City going head-to-head on Saturday lunchtime, and it's live on Sky Sports.

The game gets under way at 12:30pm and, based on recent matches, this has all the potential to be an absolute cracker.

Good week?

For the visitors, yes. In fact, it couldn't have gone much better for Gary Rowett and his players. Birmingham had a good run at the end of 2014/15 under the stewardship of the former Burton Albion boss, and they have carried that form into the new campaign.

A 2-1 home win over Reading on Match Round 1 gave them the perfect start, although it took a penalty save from Tomasz Kuszczak deep into injury time to secure the three points.

It was the same scoreline in the Capital One Cup in midweek, when the Blues overcame Bristol Rovers on a picturesque evening in the west of the country.

Sean Dyche won't be as happy with his Burnley side, who were dumped out of the Cup by Port Vale on Tuesday night, losing to an 82nd-minute strike by the League 1 outfit.

Dyche will want to quickly end a habit of conceding late on, with Leeds United also scoring past the Clarets towards the closing stages last Saturday. On that occasion though, Sam Vokes popped up to save the day and earn Burnley a share of the spoils.

Recent meetings

Expect goals. There have been 29 in the last eight, and 13 in the last four at Turf Moor. The most recent meeting in Lancashire came during Burnley's promotion-winning season of 2013/14, when the Clarets inflicted a 3-0 defeat on Birmingham.

In the two visits prior to that defeat, the Blues came back with all three points – winning 3-1 and 2-1 on the road, and the fixture also tends to throw up late drama.

From those last eight encounters, only the aforementioned 3-0 win for the Clarets didn't feature a goal in the last five minutes, and the most recent of them all – a 3-3 draw at St Andrews – featured two of them, when Federico Macheda dramatically cancelled out a Vokes effort.

Media talk

Burnley boss Sean Dyche is looking forward to the first match of 2015/16 at Turf Moor, and is wary that a lot of teams will visit Lancashire seeking a bit of a scalp.

Speaking to Clarets Player, Dyche said: “I think we've become a more recognised club and a more recognised force because of the last couple of years. We maybe could have got under the radar a couple of years ago, and people will see us as a bigger game than maybe they did two years ago.”

Despite two wins from their first two fixtures of the campaign, Blues manager Gary Rowett is still looking to strengthen his squad for the season ahead.

"I could almost guarantee that we’ll have two more players in before the window shuts, but which two players we manage to conclude the deals is very difficult to say. But that’s certainly something we will do.” Rowett told the club's official website.

"I know there is a clamour to do it straight away but we’ve got another week after the Burnley game. The Burnley squad is going to be the Burnley squad anyway, so why rush into it desperately."

International broadcasters

Saturday’s lunchtime contest will be broadcast globally to 20 territories. Here's a full list of international takers...

Broadcaster

Territories

beIN Sports

Australia

Sportklub

Balkans

Nova Sport

Bulgaria

LETV

China

beIN Sports

France, Andorra, Monaco

Sportdigital

Ger, Aus, Switz

beIN Sports

Hong Kong

Ten Sports

Indian Subcontinent

beIN Sports

Indonesia

Charlton

Israel

Gazzetta

Italy

beIN Sports

MENA

Skynet

Myanmar

Sport 1

Netherlands

TV2

Norway

beIN Sports

Phillipines

Eleven Sports

Singapore

Fox Sports

Sub-Saharan Africa

Supersport

Sub-Saharan Africa

beIN Sports

USA, Canada

SCTV

Vietnam

Don’t miss it!

Sky Sports’ live coverage from Turf Moor starts at 12pm and we’ll also be tweeting match updates via @SkyBetChamp - get following!